Introduction

Welcome to the Westerly Wiki sponsored by the Westerly Owners Association. Our aim is to make the WesterlyWiki the prime source of technical information about Westerly Yachts. The Wiki is under construction so you will find many empty pages and as this is a Wiki you are invited to help to fill them. The Wiki is an open (public) resource and anyone may contribute material or correct existing entries (see Guidance for Contributors below). However you do need to register your email address (using real names please) and log in to contribute - anonymous access is not supported.

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The Westerly Companies

Around the start of 1963 Commander Denys Rayner, an established yacht designer (see Before Westerly), was approached by Hilary Scott, a man of some means, to design a GRP yacht to be built by a new company he wanted set up. Rayner designed â€˜The Westerlyâ€™ - a 22ft yacht similar in some respects to a wooden yacht he had designed earlier; the boat was subsequently renamed the â€˜Westerly 22â€™. After some discussion, Rayner became MD of the new company, whilst Scott and a solicitor called Michael Hurd became its non-executive directors. That company, founded in March 1963, was called â€˜Westerly Marine Construction Ltdâ€™, the first of several companies to own the Westerly brand name, and usually referred to as just "Westerly" see
A Brief Corporate History of Westerly Over the decades that Westerly in it's various incarnations dominated the UK leisure yachting industry they employed the best designers of the day including John Butler, Ian Proctor , Jack Laurent Giles, Chris Hawkins, Mike Pocock, Ed Dubois, and Ron Holland; and from beginning to end, Westerly established and maintained a reputation for their excellent GRP layup and strength of build.

Yard Numbers, Sail Numbers, and Hull Numbers

The Yard Number is the number on the plate in the hatchway and consists of a letter then 3 numbers i.e. A 123 The prefix letter originally indicated from which shed in Waterlooville the hull was made but soon came to represent the specific model being built. The digits represent the number of that specific hull. You'll also find the number in wax crayon on the underside of removable wood panels.

The Sail Number is a different number to the hull number. Some boats were registered internationally so werenâ€™t given class numbers (GK24s for example). Sail numbers were issued numerically and in series when orders were placed, but if orders were cancelled the next ordered Sail Number was issued to the next hull coming off the production line. As the hulls were coming off the production line in numerical order, the Sail Number issued to it was the next ordered and paid for Sail Number. In this way, Sail Numbers and Yard Numbers got jumbled up. A further complication to be added into the mix is that some designs used the same hull but different tops.

The Hull Numbers were stamped into the moulding of the hull on the stern of the boat on the port side near the top of the hull. It is solely a Certificate of Hull Construction number issued by Lloyds Register of Shipping and is in the form ABC 123456. There is an example of a 1967 Centaur Hull Number here: [2]. Early Centaurs (prior to 1973?....any advances on '73) do not appear to have this.

If by chance your boatâ€™s Yard Number and Sail Number coincide, that is a rare occurrence. More often than not the numbers do not coincide and because your Yard Number is 219 it does not mean that your Sail Number is 219. For example the Renown share the same hull with the Pentland, and the very first Renown built R1 has a Yard Number of O (oscar) 036. The authors Renown has a sail number of 129 but a Yard Number of O (oscar) 243

Navigation and Pilotage

Guidance for Contributors

This is an open Wiki so anyone can contribute. Please open an account and log in using your real name. The basic syntax is simple so with a little reading through the Help under Navigation and/or the FAQ link below any one can enter material and edit text. For more complex layout editing some knowledge of a language such as HTML will help or you can email the Sysops and leave a request for support at westerlywiki@westerly-owners.co.uk. Contributors should endeavour to review the best available information on a topic and submit a digest of that information to the Wiki. Prime sources of information will include personal experience (preferred), magazines, the WOA Web site and discussion groups such as WOA and Yahoo. Material should not be lifted verbatim rather a digested version should be presented in the Wiki. There are generally several alternative approaches or opinions about any task and Wiki contributors should endeavour to identify these alternatives and provide hooks (follow on pages) to the alternatives. Even if the information is not available to the original contributor someone else can later add that information. Reprints of chatty Practical Boat Owner type articles are not recommended because this is not Wiki style. The "How I did it" article which is suitable for a magazine is generally just one view and the Wiki needs to recognise alternates.
You should also add a Resources section where applicable providing links to suppliers web sites and a References section listing sources of material used in the compilation of the section.